From Deseret News archives:
Bush pushes democracy for Cuba
List of country's backers is 'far too short,' he says
"Unfortunately, the list of countries supporting the Cuban people is far too short and the democracies absent from that list are far too notable," Bush said at the White House.
The "small band of brave nations" speaking out for freedom in Cuba include, Bush said, his own administration as well as nations that were in the communist bloc but are now democratic such as the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.
"The United States has not been silent, nor will we be silent," he said. "When a new day finally dawns for Cubans, they will remember the few brave nations that stood with them, and the many that did not."
Bush spoke after meeting in the Oval Office with former prisoner Miguel Sigler Amaya and his wife, Josefa Lopez Pena.
"For Miguel and Josefa, the horrors of life in Cuba are behind them, but millions of others are still trapped in the tropical gulag," Bush said. "Yet most of the world says nothing."
The president said the global community has largely remained silent in recent months, even as dozens of young Cubans wearing "change" bracelets were arrested, as Cuban authorities raided a Catholic church to spray parishioners with tear gas and drag them away. Last weekend, activists distributing copies of the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights were pushed and beaten.
"That same week, Cuba signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," Bush said. "The international community applauded Cuba for signing a piece of paper but on the abuses that same week, much of the world was silent."
The Cuban government, which often takes several days to respond to criticisms from Washington if it responds at all had no immediate comment Friday on the Bush speech.
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